Light My Kindle

The Kindle can be used as a rudimentary music player (with your only listening mode being random), or you can load background music to listen to while reading or browsing the Kindle store. Either way, the process is very easy.

First, connect your Kindle to your computer using the white USB to mini USB cable that came with your Kindle. You should see a screen that says “Your Kindle is in USB drive mode.” and has a USB symbol on it.

Next, open up the Kindle’s music folder on your computer by following these steps:
1. Click on Start.
2. Click on My Computer.
3. Double-click on your Kindle [on my computer it shows as Removable Disk (G:)]. You should see three folders: documents, music, and Audible.
4. Double-click on music.

Now, open your My Music folder (or whatever folder you store your music in on your computer) and choose some files to copy over. Highlight the music files you’d like to move to your Kindle and press Ctrl+C. Go back to the music folder from the Kindle and press Ctrl+V. The files should only take a minute or so to copy over.

Once they have copied and you have disconnected your Kindle from the computer, navigate to the Experimental section by choosing Menu and clicking on Experimental from the home screen. Under Play Music the little play button should now be bold (as opposed to a light grey color when you don’t have any music files on the Kindle). Click on the Play button and your music will start.

To stop the music just hit the Pause button that replaced the Play button when you started the music, or choose Stop Music from the Menu.

Next week I’ll cover all sorts of tips and tricks for maximizing your usage of the music player on your Kindle.